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Wednesday, February 04, 2015

A quick sketch portrait of Samus Aran for #Sketch_Dailies posted originally on my twitter for their daily sketch challenges.Here's the black and white version wanted to keep it simple and strong and decided to try out a bit of a textured crosshatched background.

For the color version to keep with the background style I tried to keep the same crosshatch style to give it a comic book, pop art feel.

It was a good way to to save on time with out getting into heavy rendering. I'll probably still going in to it at a later time to give some more detail, rendering and attention to her mechanical parts.

I usually post my #sketch_dailies on my twitter when I get around to them, or even on my fb page.

Friday, January 09, 2015

This was an ink warm-up to loosen up for some other projects in the works. Plus I just started playing around in Manga Studio, so this was done mostly in there to give it a test run. Plus I love Batman Beyond and just finished reading through the whole comic run, which was very true to the show and expanded it's world, but still managed to be great in it's own right.

Anyways, there are definitely a lot of benefits in Manga Studio. Mainly the ink brushes are so smooth and precise compared to Photoshop. They're really fast and responsive, I was able to go from sketch to final in no time. I'm sure there's tweaking and brush downloads available to get a similar effect in PS, but I'm really digging Manga Studio for now.

Not saying I completely switched over either. MS is really fast for drawing, laying down lines and get it sharp and crisp. But I still finished up the fine details and shading in PS, plus the color and the background.

Here's a close up detail shot.

PS and MS both have their own strengths, the trick is gonna be figuring a good work flow to take advantage of all of them.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

I started doing a series of my own personal comic icons, mostly characters or creators who I really admire for their style and vision. I couldn't pass up Mike Mignola's Hellboy, they both ooze style.

I started with a quick sketch. I wanted to keep the lines clean and fresh, with big shapes. I didn't want to completely ape Mignola's style, just use it as inspiration.

I knew from the start it was going to be a digital piece and sometimes starting a sketch digitally gets too messy for me. I've also been trying to streamline my process. So I just sketched it out, took a quick picture, and redrew the whole thing digitally.

Since sometimes scanning forces me to try to save the original line work, I wanted a photo so it pushes me to recreate crisp lines.

Here's the finished linework. Mostly cleanup and blocking in the empty shapes. Plus he needed his iconic BPRD patch.

I tried no to get to crazy with the detail, here's a bit of a close up shot.

And onto the color! The color was a bit of a head scratcher for me, I wanted to find a nice balance between flat colors like the comic, but just enough detail to set off the linework.

And that's about it. Trying to keep the linework and detail minimal was crucial for the color not to become overpowering in the end.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

This was an older gallery piece for DARK ARTS, a Halloween art show and entertainment event on October 26, 2013 at stationnumber3 in St. Pete.

The theme was basically anything dark and Halloween themed. I decided I wanted my piece to be local to St. Pete and Florida as well. So I chose to go with the legend of the Myakka Skunk Ape.

Think of a swamp version of Bigfoot, That's our Skunk Ape.

The original sketch was just a bunch of scribbles in Photoshop to get a basic composition and shape down. I wanted to make this piece as organic and fresh as I could, so I went with minimal planning.

The one thing I did plan out is the overall style and look I wanted. So I zoomed in on a small part of the digital sketch and pushed as far towards finished as I could.

From there it was just a matter of transferring the sketch onto a 2 x 4 foot whiteboard by grid and then lots and lots of time detailing.

More detailing. The whole piece was done in sharpies of all sizes, and even red sharpie for the trees. I wanted to see if I could stick to one material for the whole piece.

And finally all done!

And here's some close ups.

In the end it was a really fun piece and a great show with over 60 other local artists, plus food vendors and live music.The main pupose was the challenge of sticking to one material the whole way through, I might have to do a digital updated version as a print eventually and clean up the lines and color.

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Recently, I had my show at Artspace Anna Maria, which is an amazing space right on the beach on Anna Maria Island, run by the amazing artistDeborah Webster. I'd say it's pretty much like a fusion between an art gallery and beach paradise.

The show was a lot of fun and a real challenge. I had a lot of ideas and concepts of things I wanted to try out, but these things never go as expected, so you have to go with the flow and see what comes out.

I wanted the abstract pieces to be a bit of an appetizer to help get people into the mind frame and feeling of what I wanted the show to be. It's more about playing with colors and forms and shapes and having fun.

I wanted to show a little behind the scenes into the creative process before they got to the main show.

And the ladies, well they're the ladies, the main attraction. I played with different techniques on each of them, trying to capture different feelings with each one.

Each one was a bit of a different journey, never really coming out how I expected. But since one of my main focuses was trying something new, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

I did have a blast with the technique, it does get a little stressful because there isn't much control. But that might be one of my favorite things about it.

So, it's definitely a style I'm going to stick with and keep developing and pushing. The only trick will be finding space to fit all of them down the line, at 2x4 feet each these ladies are not small...

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

I'm working on a new series for the Gallery Artspace Anna Maria here on the beautiful Anna Maria Island. They have and amazing location right by the water and I'm just really excited for it! It's gonna be on August 11 - 24 and the title will be Abstract Expressions and I'll be posting process and all that through my Facebook.

For these pieces I really wanted to fuse my drawing style with some of the abstract style I use for my experimental paintings. The experimental abstract paintings are great creative release for me, because I just play around with colors, splatters and just try and stretch my wings a little.

But they're missing a big part that would really elevate them into being a final piece. For this series I decided to tackle that.

This was my first attempt. I started with some strong reference and a very clear idea and I set forth to paint it. This was my first mistake because I am more of a draftsman than a painter, and especially for an experimental process like this, it was a bit of a risk having so much of the piece riding on those skills.

I don't dislike the piece, I learned a lot from it, and there is a process and a technique that can be developed there later on. But it wasn't what I was looking for for this series.

So I started over with my same idea and my same reference. Then it hit me "Why am I not drawing?". I've been seeing a lot of street art lately and I'd always been interested in wheat-pasting but I never had an oppurtunity to really use it.

Except for now.

And just like that I found a fun way to fuse my ink work with my abstract work. There's still a lot more experimentation and fine tuning that will go into it. What you see will probably be the half way point before the final.

The main thing is I have a lot more room to play around and experiment, because the underlying artwork is already there. As long as I let that shine through and just focus on blending the styles, I'll be able to have as much fun as I want with it.

Remember, this is just a teaser. Feature presentation won't be out till August 11!

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

So, a lot of stuff has been going on. Thanks to Art in the Park I met a business partner that runs a clothing factory and wants to work together with SuarezArt to bring some new life, fresh blood, and sick art to his business.
We've been building some brands and clothing lines, I think I've drawn more these last 3 weeks than I have my whole life. I don't know if that says something about how much work I've done now, or how lazy I was then...
Anyways most of the stuff is hush hush but I will post the things that are Suarezart related.

This girl was drawn on my first day in. I just went at it like no tomorrow.

We wanted a design to be unique, so he showed me this screen printing process that actually prints around the neck hole, and that set off my creative juices.

From there I started thinking what would look best draped around your neck. What would look cool? I started thinking Mucha, and hair. I love drawing hair, but I needed something cool so I wanted some barbed wire/thorns because I also wanted a flower as a design element.

This is the final shirt design, the thorn and rose are gold foil. There might be a few changes during production, but I think this is strong.

And here's she is all nice and fixed up ready for a poster. This process is much more difficult to explain because it's mostly trial and error, throwing layers and all kinds of stuff on top of each other until something pops out to me.It's actually usually the funnest part!